Category: My Good Life

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Diary

GCA 2009 – “Hacking” Our Way Into Games Convention Asia, Lol

OK, they got my name wrong ... lol ... sort of.

I didn’t wake up on a Thursday morning thinking that I would attend an exhibition.  “GCA” sounded familiar.  As though I have been to such an event before.  I did some checking on my website and guess what?  One year ago, on this day, I was wearing the media pass for this event, invited by Nokia!  It’s been a year already?  And neither did I wake up on a Thursday morning thinking that I would wear a professional visitor pass, acting as my good friend’s assistance for a day.

This morning, a text message arrived at my phone.  My friend wanted to meet up at SunTech for a meal before heading to an exhibition.  Fine by me.  “What are we going to do at an exhibition?” I texted.  “I will tell you later,” she texted back.

As I made my way to the convention center, there she was, looking absolutely stunning , and professional too.  Fashionable long dress and jacket, with a Prada handbag to match.  Her job title is “Head of Regional Sales”.  Not long ago, we were peers, same company, same team.  I really ought to catch up on my career progression.  And I am happy for her.  Sales type of work suits her better than my 9 to 5.

It seemed like her first time here in this kind of exhibition.  Feeling excited and all.  It was definitely my first time in this kind of exhibition, without a media pass.  I too felt excited because … oh well, computer gaming is in my blood.  GCA is primary for the business partners to meet.  Nokia doesn’t seem to participate this year.  I wonder why.

With confidence, my friend headed to the registration counter to get the professional visitor pass.  I doubt if anyone would say no to my very pleasant looking friend, together with her equally pleasant name card.  I played along when it came to my turn and said with a smile, “She is my boss and I am her assistant, today!”  The young chap seemed amused and he didn’t say no to me neither.  Hooray!  I played a good assistance, helped my ‘boss’ to sign in, and …

… Oops.  I bumped onto a few journalist friends from the media.  One of them asked, “What are you doing here?”  And I said, “I am with my boss, on a mission!”  “But you are usually the main guy!  Where is your camera?” he asked.  “Not today!  Ha ha ha, I will see you around,” I waved goodbye.  My media friends seem to remember me by my camera.  How strange!

Upon receiving our passes, my friend suddenly turned professional, looked at me and said, “Since you are my assistant today, tell me what’s our game plan?”  Hmmm.  I put on my consultant hat, pulled out the program guide and said, “If I guess your intend right, we should check out the business exhibitors first and gather some contacts.  After which, we could head over to the consumer side as it is usually more fun.  As for the conferences, we can think of that later.”

Of all the business exhibitors, I enjoyed chatting with the folks from Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab.  It is a collaboration between MIT and Singapore.  I asked if it is the MIT and the students said yes.  Amazing.  One Western lady is currently studying computing and mathematics in MIT.  We had a friendly chat.  And I had also chatted with some of the Asian students in order for me to understand what it takes to build an Indie computer game prototype.  It is often a 10 weeks or so project with up to 10 team members taking on the roles of producer, game designer, graphic designer, and etc.  The passion these students has was infectious.  I could feel it immediately.  If you have time, check out GAMBIT’s official site.  Before I left the booth, I asked one last question, “Have you considered joining Blizzard?”  For those who are new to the gaming industry, I think Blizzard at present is the place to be at.  “Funny you asked that,” he continued, “as I have considered working with Blizzard before.  But I prefer to work in an Indie environment instead.”  Good answer.  And I wish them all the best in their studies.

Moving on to the consumer side, it did have the bells and whistles, big monitors and girls in sexy outfits to make people go wow.  OK, my friend was as excited as me, for slightly different reason.  Taking the center stage was none other than the Xbox 360 game “Forza Motorsports 3”.  If only those were Formula One cars, that would have been perfect – for me.  There was a costume shop that showcased a life size Thrall (a famous dude from the online game World of Warcraft who gets murdered globally perhaps a hundred times a day) and Ironman.  The Counter Strike costume worn by a group of real life male models was just so hilarious.

After we have covered both the business and consumer sides, the only agenda item left for us – or rather her – to visit is the conference.  Since we are not from the media, we have to pay S$700+ per person.  Uh huh.  OK, somewhere somehow, we have got to …

… my friend pressed on insisting that her company is sort of like a media company.  Hmmm, really?!  I guess we could see it that way.  The young chap got a bit lost, politely asking us to wait while he was going to get his boss.  Uh oh.  I swear I was about to pull my “new media” trick telling them I am running a rather, ahem, popular website in Singapore if we got ourselves into an embarrassing situation.

No need for that because his boss was not around.  We left the convention center, went our separate ways.  One hour later, I received a phone call.

“Guess what?!  They have called and issued us a media pass!  Do you wanna …”

She got the media pass?  Again, who can say no to her?

PS. Below are some of the processed photos I have taken during my adventure.  I didn’t bring my Nikon D700 with me and have used my Nokia N97 instead.

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Linguistic

¡Uff…! Our Spanish Exam Certificates From Las Lilas

Yes, we have passed! He he he.

It felt like yesterday when we returned home with two certificates.  A moderately hard earned albeit minor achievement in our routine life.  Now that I am reading that entry I wrote back in January, have you noticed how much the certificate’s template has changed?  From that entry, I notice that Cynthia and my scores don’t change much.  Except, she has somewhat improved.  And I have somewhat … oh well.  For Elementary level, Cynthia has upped her score to a high nineties.  While I slipped to a low eighties.  Our gap has widened from 9% at the Beginner’s level to a worrying 13%!  This is Singapore.  We all need to score an A+.  And there is no anything but.

Jokes aside.  I am delighted to have passed and moved onto the next level.

Learning Spanish reminds me of my painful journey of learning English.  You see.  English is not my first language.  We learned English in Hong Kong inside a classroom of students and teachers speaking Cantonese, during English classes.  Sure.  We have worked really hard on English grammar, since young.  In my late teens, I began writing diary in English, reading English books, listening to English songs, and speaking English [almost] everyday.  That was when I have moved to UK for my study.  Then I went crazy over English literature.  Began to write songs in English.  And now, running a website in English seems like a fun thing to do.

So, by my reckoning, if I am to be serious on learning Spanish, mirroring what I have learned from learning English, the followings will have to happen, quite possibly in that order.  A laundry list of more moderately hard earned albeit minor achievements as such:

  1. Able to catch bits and pieces of simple Spanish from books, newspapers, magazines, and etc.
  2. Able to catch simple spoken phrases from radio, music, and etc.
  3. Able to hold a basic conversation.
  4. Write private diary in Spanish.
  5. Play guitar and sing along with a Spanish pop song (music plays a big part of our lives and I wonder why Las Lilas School doesn’t incorporate music into their curriculums).
  6. Read Bible in Spanish (I happen to be one of those who studies English by reading Bible, as I was familiar with the Chinese Bible and it helped).
  7. Master Spanish expressions, idioms, and expand the vocabulary.
  8. Able to appreciate Spanish humor.
  9. Able to hold a decent conversation, appreciate Spanish literature, catch the music lyrics, listen to the radio, and watch a Spanish movie without subtitles.
  10. Able to blog in Spanish at ease.

Of course I am eying on #10.  But if I could achieve up to #6 in the near future (like in 3 years’ time?), I think I would be much delighted.

Categories
Photography Travel Blog

So Many Boats, In The Beautiful Island of Mallorca (Majorca)

Cynthia and I in Mallorca

If you are one of the handful of readers who follow this Sunday series, you probably wonder, where am I in the photos?  I am often not that keen to go in front of the camera.  Happy to stay behind the viewfinder instead.  And all of a sudden, in day 11, I put my tripod into action.  A bit late I know.  But better then never, eh?

Interestingly, out of this handful of readers who often drop a comment or two at my site (thank you!), one is traveling from Singapore to Hong Kong for holiday, with his wife.  And another one is traveling from Hong Kong to Singapore for holiday, also with his wife.  Well, bros, take some good photos and have a good family outing.  I look forward to seeing your photo albums!

Mallorca, or Majorca in English, is a beautiful island.  The beach, the boats, the blue sky, the lake, and the mountains.  It is a perfect destination for the cyclists too.  No wonder Mallorca is such a popular vocation destination for the Europeans.  To read more about our road trip in Mallorca.

To read the rest of the travel blog entries, please follow this tag.

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Diary

It’s 09/09/09 09:09:09, Pee Em Though, But Still …

My Fan (photo taken using N97)

Rarely do I have to blog.  I mean, I often blog.  But I blog as per planned, or as and when I like to blog.  Thanks to my friend Supriya – the same lady who reminded me of that strange moment 12:34:56 7/8/9 while I was choosing my lunch dishes near the National Library one sunny afternoon – I was reminded that today is the 9th of September zero nine.

So what am I going to write?  My new blogger friend Heyzanie (please pop by and say hi) wants to get into the rhythm of writing every day.  Good for her!  I have gone through that period of writing every day and to me, the merit is that I got into this rhythm of wanting to make my life interesting each day.  So that I have something to write.  It is the goal that drives the outcome.

As time goes by, I want to focus my energy to create, or attempt to create posts of higher quality at times, more voluminous at times.  And that takes, time.  Like that holiday trip journals that I have been working on since June.  Two more entries to go and I am done, done!  Or like those articles I write, on that phone I love to use.  The latest article has a word count of close to 5,000!  Gasp!  Fortunately that is a phone that I love to use eh?  In any case, word counts don’t mean much, I know.  But like my buddy TK – inspiring no less – training to run a full marathon.  I reckon distance matters, daily persistence matters – when it all adds up, it matters.

Imagine.  If I am to write 5,000 words a day, in just two weeks, I would have written a novel of a decent size, in today’s standard.  Not bad huh?  Now, all I need to do is to find something passionate to write about.  Same passion as to my beloved phone.

I have thought about starting this entry with a song idea that has been in my head today.  But I reckon the subject may alienate some of my valuable readers, you.  Who cares about lyrics and songwriting?  Just give us the beats!  And hence, I am hiding this few paragraphs, into the middle of this entry.  To my estimation, most people would start to lose focus after the 256th word.  So here is safe.

My 159th song would begin with something like: It’s September.  Far as she remembers.  And she’s been waiting.  For him to appear.  Familiar faces.  Familiar places.  Turning into a stone.  She may appear.  Her heart still beats.  On what little she remembers.  She said it’s not fair.  He smiled and queried why.  It was September.  If only he could be here.  It was snow, in September.  And it snows.  Those glittering tears.

In all seriousness, at times I dream of what to write if I was a writer.  A real writer.  Not just a blogger.  I am not sure if I am a good story writer, able to craft an entertaining plot from thin air.  Certainly not having strong opinions on the governments or the way societies are today.  Hence those classic stories of writing a story with a hidden agenda is out.  That leaves only my personal journal and my observation on the things around me.  I mean, would you pay to read these entries?  In all seriousness?

Yes, there is something I wish to blog about.  And if my prediction is right, people often skip all of the above after the 256th character and head straight to the last paragraph of an entry.  Here!  I am not sure if you remember there are things I wish to do, before 2009 ends.  Let’s just say, I am well on target.  I have passed my Spanish examination and have ripped my entire CD collection into digital format.  I would want to look into my music next.

PS 1. Believe it or not, I have scheduled this post to be out at 9.09 pm.  When the clock struck 09.09.09 09:09:09, my site hanged or crashed.  Just when the post was supposed to be out.  In Cantonese, nine means forever.  And for the last 1 hour, it sure felt like forever.

Oh, thank you Darkspore for magically bringing my site back up (once again).  What am I to do without you?

PS 2. Why the photo of the fan?  If there is one thing that watches over me while I blog, that would be …

Categories
For the Geeks I See I Write

So, Honestly, What Is It Like With The Nokia N97?

Home Screen of Nokia N97

In a world today whereby every other touchscreen phone is a Blackberry or an Apple, I certainly feel somewhat special by having the new Nokia N97.  Strangers would come up to me and ask what is it like with the N97 (as I use my phone often in public).  Like in NTUC, while I was doing grocery shopping with my family.  Or like the lady behind the mixed rice counter in a food court.  Or my colleagues whom I normally wouldn’t interact with would come up and strike a conversation with me.  Some ask for the tips of using the phone.  Some simply like many others curious of what this new flagship product is like.  For them, I am more than happy to do a live demo, there and then.  Making friends.

Throughout this six weeks, I have experienced quite a fair bit with the phone.  I have also had quite a few good opportunity to play with my friends’ Blackberry and Apple phones.  By no means the following article is meant to be a product comparison, or even a product review.  Just an honest write-up on my hands-on experience with the N97 thus far.  And if you are already a N97 user (or going to be), you may find a few good tips too.

So, are you ready?

PS. If you are shopping for a phone, make sure you work out the total cost of ownership over the contract period.  My 30GB data plan is S$13 a month just to give you some ideas when you examine the bundled price of any given phone.

Related Article: Experiencing Nokia N97

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Photography Travel Blog

Traveling To The Beach Resort Island, A Prelude to Mallorca

A view near the hotel Mar Azul

The color of this photo is taken straight from my camera, a faithful reproduction of the beautiful sea view that we saw.  I have been contemplating if I shall combine the day 10 and 11 entries into one as I didn’t manage to take many photos that day, for circumstances that you will read later.  But since day 11 and 12 – the last 2 entries of the series – are pretty heavy with some real good contents (I promise), I shall leave day 10 entry as it is – like a prelude.  A bit light on the photo album (sorry!).  The journal, nevertheless, is as meaty as ever (kekeke).

As such, below are the options you may wish to read more about our first day in Mallorca.

To read the rest of the travel blog entries, please follow this tag.

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Photography Travel Blog

Madrid, It’s Madrid!

Cynthia on the top of a Cathedral in Madrid

Recently, I met up with one reader of my website, for a movie by an actress we both adore.  And he brought along with him a photo album of his recent overseas trip, shot using the camera that I recommended.  He had some questions in mind but I am far from being a pro.  Nevertheless, I was happy to share my experience with him.

I enjoy seeing a photo album of family and friends.  That is what I love to do; and that is what I love to see.  Specifically, I enjoy seeing the connection between the subjects and the photographer.  Personally, I find it hard to photograph subjects that I cannot relate.  Back to my new friend, we had such a good time.  He is a bright young man with great drive.  Certainly someone with a promising future.

Time flies.  Since when it doesn’t?  Some friends of mine start to ask, “How many more days to go?”.  Each Sunday, I publish a mini article on one day of my recent holiday trip to Spain.  Each article takes me any time between 8 hours to 16 hours to complete.  It must be quite an effort to follow this mini series of mine, as much as the effort I pour into each article.  The answer is: three more days to go.  And I am looking forward to the 26th of September, whereby I will take a break from the 12 weekends of non-stop publication of this travel blog.

Day 9, we toured Madrid.  You know how some days you pick up your camera and feel that every shot you make is just great.  Some days, you keep trying for different settings and still not quite getting it.  Day 9 turns out to be quite a challenging day for me.  Maybe the sun was too strong.  Maybe I was messing around with the flash setting trying to do something different.  I thank Cynthia for being so patience, standing under the sun for those multiple shots of the same pose, same scene.  Till her nose bled.

As always, below are the options you may wish to read more about our trip.

To read the rest of the travel blog entries, please follow this tag.

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Photography Travel Blog

A Museum Crawling Day In The City Of Madrid

Inside the Queen Sofia Museum

Throughout this series thus far, you have seen pictures of the Churches and the monuments, of the road trips, and even those of the bizarre creatures and the futuristic buildings from Valencia.  On the 8th days, we dedicated the entire Sunday touring museums in Madrid.

Cynthia and I love to spend time inside a museum.  I reckon if we spend enough time inside museums, we could sharpen our sense of art appreciation.  I am not sure how museums are run in Singapore (perhaps we shall explore).  In Spain, Audio Guide rental services are provided.  We think Audio Guide is a wonderful innovation.  It is a headset that comes with a keypad.  At a given location, observe the numeric label besides the artwork, punch in the numbers, and listen to the commentary playback through the headset in the language of your choice.  We have learned how to appreciate cubism and realism.  And we have also learned what questions to ask when admiring art models in 3D.

As always, below are the options you may wish to read more about our trip.

To read the rest of the travel blog entries, please follow this tag.

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Linguistic

¿Qué Hiciste Ayer, Qué Ha Hecho Esta Semana?

OK.  Forget about plan A and B.  I am running out of time.  Plan C is to semi-cheat (it is semi because I have actually worked for this).  When our teacher momentarily leaves the classroom tomorrow, I will quickly pull out my phone and hit this page.  Ah ha!  That will most likely help me with some of the exam questions.  I am done with the verb conjugation.  I am done with the long list of nouns and adjectives.  I got wind on what the written and oral questions are going to be (thank you PK and Monster!).  And if I have to spend the entire evening getting prepared for these questions, so be it!

80 words on either “what did you do yesterday” or “what have you done this week”.  Life is not fair.  At this very moment while I am still struggling with the preparation, Cynthia is already fast asleep.  She probably has not set the alarm clock for tomorrow morning.  As for me, I will get up early to continue with my study.

First question is “what did you do yesterday?”.  Well, I woke up, showered, had breakfast, and went to work.  I worked  in front of a computer.  I ate lunch alone, studied Spanish over Starbucks coffee, and then I met up with my friend Ken later in the afternoon over a cup of tea (real story … ha ha ha).  After which, I had dinner with my family at home, studied Spanish, and slept at 12 (which may still happen if I type faster now).

Me levanté a las siete menos cuarto de la mañana.  Me duché después yo desayuné los cereales y bebí un café con leche.  A las ocho salí a trabajar.

Trabajé en la oficina enfrente del ordenador.  A las doce, comí en “PoMo” solo.  Después fui a Starbucks, bebí un café y estudié español.

Ayer por la tarde, quedé mi amigo Ken.  Nosotros tomamos té con limon.  A las cinco, volví a mi oficina y trabaje un poco.  Después volví a mi casa, cené con mi familiar.  Luego estudié español y escuché la radio estación Europa FM.

A las doce por la noche, dormí.

I think I overdid a bit and have exceeded the 80 words requirement.  Next one – what have you done this week – I struggled to meet 80 words.  So what have I done this week?  I have studied Spanish everywhere I go, listened to Spanish radio channel, spent time in Facebook, and worked 5 days a week.  No movie, no shopping, no exercise, just study Spansih.

Esta semana, he estudiado español en mi casa y mi oficina.

He escuchado la radio estación Europa FM y he escrito en Facebook todos los días.  Pues, he trabajado cinco días esta semana.

He quedado mi amigo Ken y hemos tomado té con limon.

No he visto una película, no he ido de compras, no he hecho deporte, por que he estudiado español siempre esta semana.

Oral exam is the tricky one.  I probably won’t be able to catch what the teacher asks.  My best guess is that she will ask me what I can do (¿qué cosas sabes hacer?) and what my physical and non-physical attributes are.  Well, I guess I could say that I can cook, play guitar, sing, ride a bike, and speak Spanish (hmmm).  I think I am sort of tall, sort of thin, quite good looking (ha ha ha!), and have black hair.  Personality-wise, quite funny, a little bit weird, and very *ahem* intelligent.

Sé cocinar, sé jugar la guitarra, sé cantar, sé montar en bici, y sé hablar español.

Yo creo que soy bastante divertido, un poco raro, y muy inteligente.

Estoy alto, delgado y bastante guapo. Tengo el pelo moreno.

The last oral question could be: what are the places of interest in Singapore?  Right, what are the places of interest in Singapore?!  I hope before 1 pm tomorrow, I will figure that one out.

Categories
Diary Linguistic

The Art Of Conjugation (Be Back After Our Spanish Exam!)

The art of Spanish conjugation

How time flies.  Just about a year ago we have started learning a new language.  That was before I have started my photography hobby.  And it seems that I have been taking photos for ages.  Getting things into rhythm does have its merits.  Before I knew it, I have clocked in 80 hours of Spanish lessons; before I knew it, I have taken 15,038 photos using my dSLR camera.  Who knows what I would become 12 years from the day I have got these things in rhythm?  (I have this theory that all good hobbies take 12 years to mature into something decent.)

Onto what I termed as “Season 2” of our Spanish class, it gets a lot harder than the previous “season”.  First, is the conjugation of verbs.  The picture above illustrates the two verbs – to want and to come – in three tenses (present, past, and present perfect) for different persons (I, you, he, and etc.).  The variation is mind blowing.  The extensive irregularity across common verbs makes it harder for me to perform pattern memorization.

Besides conjugation of verbs, for this “season”, we have a whole bunch of nouns to memorize (and we have to be able to tell which one is masculine and which one is feminine), a whole bunch of adjectives to memorize (in both masculine and feminine forms), and on top of that, forming sentences and dialogues.  At times, it seems like brutal memorization is the only feasible way to go, for me that is.

Over dinner, I have had some sharing of experience with Cynthia and her mother from Indonesia on how we learned Chinese in Hong Kong, during my time.  There was much brutal memorization on Chinese characters, poems and ancient documents, idioms, and etc.  I remember during examinations, we had to reproduce the entire poems and ancient documents accurately and strictly from our memories.  Looking back, how did we do that?  That was a lot of Chinese writings to memorize, word-by-word.  But we did it just fine back then, most of us.  And as a hobby, believe it or not, I chose to memorize extra pieces of poems that were not in scope.  There is so much wisdom and value compass embedded inside these ancient works.  It is hard to extract them if we don’t internalize them the hard way.

Back to our Spanish examination, it will be this coming Saturday.  Wish us luck!  I have just completed one round of revision and we have tomorrow evening and Saturday morning to do the round 2 and 3.  If all go well, “Season 3” will begin next Tuesday.  I suspect that the difficulty level will ramp up quite a bit.  However, since the entire class is determined to move onto the next level, I guess I just have to see how far I can get.

¡Hasta luego!